Run (Books Of Stone Book 2)

by B. L. Brunnemer

  His emotions pulled back; not much, but enough for me to concentrate. I reached out and barely brushed over the thoughts of the driver. It was that demon again. I resisted the urge to knock him out. That’d just cause a wreck, and I’d had enough of those. Making a point not to sink into his thoughts, I focused on his senses.

  We were going over a bridge…in a police car. Great. Come on, come on, where’s a damn sign. There! I pulled out of his senses and back to mine. “We’re crossing a bridge on I-62 West in a cop car.”

  “I’m on my way,” he growled in my head. “Stay connected with me.”

  “My head hurts.” I closed my eyes again.

  “I know, I can feel it.” His thought was softer, easier on my mind. “I’m coming.”

  “How are the kids, Cali, and Graham?” I asked, trying not to panic.

  “Safe. Why didn’t you call for me?”

  “You were helping to get them out of the house; I wasn’t about to stop that.”

  “So, you let him take you?” Falk roared through my head, rattling my bones.

  “Yeah, it wasn’t well thought out,” I admitted. “But I knew you’d be able to reach me—”

  “When I find you, we’re going to have a talk about the kind of risks you can take and those you can’t!” he snarled.

  “Yeah, that’s not going to go how you think it will.” I smiled to myself. “They want me alive, remember? I figured we had some time…” There was a long turn.

  “I think we’re getting off the interstate.” My heart began to pound. I reached out and looked through the demon again. Please, please… “Prairie Lake.”

  “I’m already in the air,” he promised.

  The car began to slow down. My stomach knotted.

  “Um, Falk…” I swallowed hard as the car slowed to a crawl. “I think I may have overestimated my nerve by a bit.”

  “What’s happening?” he demanded.

  “We’re slowing down, I think we’re about to stop.” I started to pull on the cuffs as the car stopped. “Falk, I’m scared.”

  “I’m almost there.” His voice was gentle on my mind, bringing me calm.

  A car door shut. My chest grew tight as I tried to maintain my calm. The trunk opened. My arm was grabbed in a harsh grip as I was pulled out of the trunk.

  “Ow, ow!” I chirped as I all but fell to the snow-covered gravel of the parking lot.

  “Ow, ow,” he mocked. “Shut it, meat sack.”

  “Then stop twisting my arm,” I countered from the ground.

  “What’s happening? Rina?” Falk’s thought was harder in my mind.

  The cop pulled me to my feet and almost dragged me around the car and down a small trail.

  “I’m okay,” I sent as I scrambled to keep my feet under me. “What do you want?”

  “My bounty,” he bit out. “But first, I need to kill off your bodyguard.”

  Once we reached the small lake, he shoved me off my feet. The air left my lungs as my back hit the tree. When the stars were cleared from my vision, I finally looked around. The shore wasn’t empty. Those black, wolf-like creatures with long, sharp spines down their backs stalked out of the woods. Four this time.

  My heart slammed in my chest; icy fear filled me. “It’s a trap. There are four barghest waiting for you.”

  “I’m not worried, schatzi,” he whispered through my head, making my chest grow tight.

  “Falk…” I swallowed hard as the cop walked back towards me.

  “Trust me.” His thought wrapped warmth around me.

  As the cop moved towards me, he changed. His skin began to turn dark gray, his face elongated, creating a muzzle. My throat tightened as he grew a good two feet. He looked like Anubis… Is…is that where the Egyptians got the image? Was Anubis really a hellhound? Damn it, Rina! Not now! “Falk, this guy just shifted into some Anubis-looking thing.”

  “Good.”

  Good? How the hell could this be good? The night was silent; the only sound was the pounding of my pulse in my ears. Every monster’s head raised, their snouts going to the sky.

  A streak dropped out of the sky into the middle of the circle of demons. Falk landed in a crouch, his eyes burned amber as he lifted his head. His lips lifted into a bloodthirsty grin that showed the tips of his fangs. Before he even straightened, the barghest were on him. He dodged the first, caught the next with a claw across the throat before ducking another. He moved with a strange grace I’d only ever seen in dancers before. His movements were smooth and fast. Almost as if they were effortless as his talons tore through the gut of another hound. Snarling, whimpers, it was all over in a few heartbeats. My breathing was loud as the hellhound prowled toward Falk.

  My mate didn’t move an inch as he waited.

  “I’m going to enjoy this.” The hellhound growled.

  Falk’s lips twitched a second before the bounty hunter leaped at him. Falk simply met him in the air, his talons driving deep into its chest. They hit the ground. The hellhound clawed at the hand buried in his chest cavity but Falk wasn’t budging. He jerked his hand out of the creature with its heart firmly in his grasp. The creature stopped moving. Falk got to his feet, dropped the heart, stomped it into the snow before he made his way to me.

  My heart pounded as the metallic stench of blood reached me. He crouched in front of me. “Lean forward.”

  I shifted and did as he asked. His jaw clenched and unclenched as he reached behind me and broke the cuffs off.

  His anger drove over me in waves. “Falk?”

  “Silence would be best at the moment,” he bit out in my mind before he got to his feet and took long, angry strides toward the lake. I got to my feet as he washed the blood off his hands and talons while he took deep breaths.

  I pulled my coat closed and waited while bouncing on my toes.

  He scrubbed his hands for some time, longer than he probably needed to. When he finally got to his feet and started back towards me, his eyes were glowing in the dark again. “What the fuck were you thinking?”

  “That I could buy you some time while you helped get Cali and Graham.” I barely resisted the urge to squirm. “That we could move the fight away from them.”

  “So, you just put yourself in the hands of a fucking hellhound!” he bellowed through the link, making me jump.

  “I didn’t say it was a good plan.” I cringed a little. He was furious. His rage poured into my mind, hot and boiling. But underneath, deep, deep, below that…was fear. Soul-deep fear. I frightened him. And he wasn’t a man used to anything scaring him.

  “Never again. You will never again put anyone else’s life over yours,” he growled as he held my gaze. “Do you understand?”

  My heart melted as I realized his fists were shaking at his sides. I closed the distance between us and looked up at him. “I understand.” I moved even closer, until I could feel his body heat.

  He grew still.

  “I didn’t mean to scare you,” I sent in a soft thought. “I’m sorry.”

  His hands cupped my face; he pressed his forehead against mine and took a deep breath. “You can’t… I can’t…” He opened his mind completely. Fear tore through me, crushing me under its weight. The terror of losing the one person who could touch you, the one person who mattered to you. It left me with tears rolling down my face.

  It hadn’t occurred to me that I wasn’t just risking my life, I was risking his as well. If I had died…he would never see the world as I saw it. He’d never see the good in it again. He’d only see the monsters… “Never again.”

  14

  Falk

  Rina sat beside me, her head against my shoulder as she slept. And there was almost nothing in the world that could get me to wake her up. After I had dealt with the body of the hellhound, I drove her back to the city. Cali was with the kids at a hotel while Graham dealt with the police and fire department. Cali had hugged Rina tightly, relieved she was okay after everything. She tried to get us to stay, but Rina had insisted o
n pushing forward.

  Snow fell heavily as the wind rattled the windows. Lightning forked from cloud to cloud. Lighting up the sky in a dangerous light show. The temperature in the train car had already dropped almost fifteen degrees the closer we got to Chicago. The snowdrifts had started getting bigger. Soon, the train wouldn’t be able to get through either. She whimpered in her sleep, shifting in her seat. Without looking away from the window, I absently reached down and settled my hand on her leg. She stopped shifting. I ran my thumb over the outside of her denim-covered knee and tried to figure out a way to get to Chicago that didn’t involve flying through that storm with Rina. Car? No, not unless it was a snowplow. I could hotwire a snowplow… No, Rina would veto that idea. We were desperate for the boat in Miami and we’d be getting desperate here soon too. She rubbed her cheek against my shirt. I looked down at her in time to watch the first drop of blood roll from her nose.

  My chest clenched as I held her cheek and brushed the blood away with my thumb. Those hazel eyes opened. She winced and closed them again. Her fingers went to her temple as she whimpered.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s too much. It’s like thousands of voices are in my head. It’s too loud.” More blood flowed from her nose. She pulled out some tissue and caught it.

  I dropped my hand from her face. We were just passing Braidwood. If she was having trouble now…this wasn’t good. “What can I do?”

  She put her head back on my shoulder. “Just keep touching me, it helps.” I spread my palm out to touch as much of her thigh as possible.

  She closed her eyes. “It makes it quieter.”

  I squeezed her knee gently. “Would getting distance from people help?”

  She nodded. “But there’s nowhere to go.”

  For humans maybe. I needed to get her away from the other humans as fast as possible. My decision made, I squeezed her knee, stood up, and helped her to her feet. She grabbed her backpack and followed without asking. We moved to the section between cars. I broke the latch on the door and forced it open. Wind howled as it went by. I pulled off my shirt and looped it through a belt loop. Rina closed her coat while I leaned out. Finding the ledge, I swung out and over to the roof of the car.

  “Falk?” she called, the worry in her voice making me smile. No one had worried about me in centuries.

  I reached over the edge and offered her my hand. She gave me a “are you kidding” look but grabbed it anyway. Quickly, I pulled her up and settled her beside me. I pulled my wings and immediately punched my talons through the metal of the roof as the wind tried to knock me off the train. I pulled her to me and leaped off the train. She squeaked as I took us higher, her arms clinging around my neck. “Wrap your legs around my waist.”

  She did as I said, pressing the heat of her against my stomach. My body grew hard as I moved one hand to her thigh to give her more support. She buried her face in my chest as lightning flashed around us. We were almost through the storm clouds when she shivered. I raised my body heat as I hurried higher.

  When we finally punched through over the storm, the flying was immediately easier. The stars glittered overhead like diamonds over black velvet. The moon shined brightly, making the clouds below glow. Lightning arced in the clouds, creating a dazzling light show. Before her, I never would have seen it. I would have seen an easier flight path. But now… “Corrina, lift your head.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t want to watch us die, thank you.”

  I chuckled as we continued flying toward Chicago. “Please?”

  She cautiously lifted her head, still clinging to my neck. She gasped as she looked around. I smiled as awe and joy resonated down our link.

  “It’s beautiful.”

  I took her a little lower, right above the clouds. Taking my hand off her thigh, I took one of hers and reached out so her fingers could brush through the clouds as if it was fog. She laughed and smiled as we flew over the storm. The happiness that radiated from her filled me with the same. “Thank you.”

  “For what?” She wiggled her fingers through the cloud.

  “Because of you, I can see this through your eyes,” I sent. “The beauty, the fun…thank you.”

  She turned back to me, her arm wrapping around my neck again. “You take yourself too seriously.”

  “Probably.”

  She smiled that gorgeous smile, laid her head on my shoulder, her forehead against my neck. And was simply happy. Amazingly happy.

  Zahur

  The distinct sound of machines working filled the silence of the med wing. The band around Evie’s lower cheeks held a tube. A tube that was going down her throat. Her chest moved in an almost jerking motion. Up. Down. Up.

  Weary, I rubbed the bridge of my nose. She shouldn’t have been in the hospital bed. She shouldn’t have needed to be put on a ventilator. But here she was…

  I stood across the bed from Atticus. He hadn’t spoken a word since I’d had to put her on the ventilator. His face was tortured as he watched her chest rise and fall. It was easier to watch Evie jerk with the ventilator breathing for her than to look at him.

  There was nothing left to do except wait for Rina and Falk and their miracle cure. My eyes drifted back to Atticus. If we lose her, we’ll lose him too. I eyed him. Probably heart failure; there was already a slight blue tint around his lips. Goddamn it! I’m a doctor with two thousand years of experience and I couldn’t do a bloody thing!

  The doors to the wing opened. Ranulf walked into the ward. “How is she?”

  “Declining.” I kept watching her chest jerk.

  Ranulf cursed in Gaelic as he moved to stand beside Atticus. The phone in the med wing rang. Fed up, I crossed the room and answered. “What?”

  “If you won’t take the vampires killing my witches seriously, then I’ll take care of it myself,” Dahlia stated.

  “There isn’t any proof that the vampires are responsible.” If I had to repeat myself one more time… “Or the wolves.”

  She hung up. I resisted the urge to throw the phone against the wall. Evie’s pulse was getting thready. I didn’t fucking have time for petty political bullshit!

  The beeping grew slower. My gaze snapped to the heart monitor as I moved back to the bed. The beats per minute dropped. A single tone sounded; the monitor showed a flat line.

  Lemora

  Something snapped free. I tilted my head to the side as I took stock. Something was wrong…Evelyn. That link to the treaty was gone. That could only mean… My heart ached a little. She had been a good person. An amazing gargoyle.

  “Ms. Lemora?” Craig’s voice brought me back to the present. Yes, the board meeting.

  “Evelyn is dead,” I announced calmly. The shock made the way around the table as I continued. “Without the treaties, the wolves will attack.” I turned to the table. “Lock the building down and get everyone into the underground shelters.”

  David

  There was an audible snap. The room spun as I steadied myself on my desk. The treaty… It was gone. Evelyn was dead. Well, that made things simple. I turned to Neil. “Evelyn’s dead. Prepare to attack.”

  Dahlia

  Something inside me shattered. I cried out as I stumbled in the hallway of the manor. Everyone started asking questions as I looked within and tried to understand what happened. No, not that, not a witch… There. The treaty.

  I opened my eyes, shocked. “Evelyn is dead.” I lifted my gaze and met my second in command’s gaze. I smiled. “We have work to do.”

  Falk

  We landed in front of the church. Rina already wasn’t doing well. I set her down carefully. Her face was pale. Her headache had gotten worse and now blood was seeping from her ears. But it didn’t matter to her; she ran towards the door and jerked it open. I was only a step behind. Heart pounding, we raced down the center aisle.

  A blood-chilling roar shook the building. Rina dropped silently to the floor. I didn’t stop. I scooped her up and kept moving towards the medic
al wing. Her eyes were closed; blood ran down her face and her throat, and sweat dotted her brow. There was no time! I slammed my shoulder into the door and ran into the ward. Everyone turned, gaping, as I handed Rina off to Ranulf.

  “Where the hell have you been?” Zahur demanded as he put the paddles back on the defibrillator.

  I didn’t even try to answer; I tore off my pack and ripped it open. I pulled out the components as Ranulf put Rina on the next bed. I opened the vial of reaper’s tears and carefully poured one drop on Evie’s forehead and rubbed it in. The monitors started beeping again. I closed the bottle and pulled out the vial of blood. I pulled her shirt up so I could see the wound, then poured the entire bottle inside. The wound began to hiss and smoke. Last, I pulled out the plastic bag with the leviathan scale in it. Carefully, I laid it over the wound. It trapped the smoke inside it and began to mold to her body. Done, I stepped back. Zahur moved forward while I went to Rina. Her color was worse, almost translucent. I felt her forehead and felt the heat coming from her.

  “She’s stabilizing,” Zahur announced. “Pulse, respiratory, everything is going back to normal.”

  I reached behind me, grabbed Zahur by the collar and dragged him to Rina’s side. He didn’t have to ask; he checked her pulse. Her breathing grew irregular; she began gasping.

  “What took you two so fucking long?” Ranulf barked.

  I ignored him and focused solely on Rina.

  Zahur pulled out a penlight, opened her eyes and checked them. She began to shake. “She’s in psychic overload. We have to get her to a shielded room now!”

  My chest grew tight. I cradled her to my chest and ran after Zahur. Thankfully, the gargoyle was fast. He led us downstairs and into the stone cells. He jerked open one door and stood aside. I didn’t ask, I didn’t doubt. I simply ran inside with her and stood in the middle of a padded room. She finally stopped shaking, her body went limp. The vise in my chest eased. Holding her, I sat on the floor and I counted the breaths until her breathing smoothed out.